Ethiopia

2012

On December 18, 16 members of the European
Parliament (MEPs) wrote an open letter
to Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn calling for the immediate release
of the independent journalist and blogger Eskinder Nega, who was condemned
in July to 18 years in prison under
the country's tough 2009
anti-terrorism legislation.

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The imprisonment of journalists hit a record high in 2012, driven by the growing use of anti-terrorism charges to silence critical voices. This video, a centerpiece of CPJ's new Free the Press campaign, details the plight of imprisoned journalists worldwide and describes how international advocacy can make a difference in winning the freedom of jailed reporters, editors, photojournalists, and bloggers. (4:40)

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Writer,
journalist, blogger, and free speech activist Eskinder Nega, the 2012
recipient of PEN American Center's Freedom to Write Award, lived in Washington,
D.C., before returning to his native Ethiopia to start one of the country's
first-ever independent newspapers. On Friday, Eskinder was back in D.C.--not
physically, but as the subject of a candlelight vigil at the African American
Civil War Memorial that commemorated the first anniversary of the blogger's arrest and sent the
message that those jailed for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of
speech are never forgotten.

Ethiopians awakened this morning to state
media reports that Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi, 57, the country's leader for 21 years, had died late
Monday in an overseas hospital of an undisclosed disease. Within seconds, Ethiopians
spread the news on social
media;
within minutes, international news media were issuing bulletins. Finally, after
weeks of government silence and obfuscation over Meles' health, there was
clarity for Ethiopians anxious for word about their leader. Still, it was left
to unnamed sources to fill in even the basic details. Meles died in a Brussels
hospital of liver cancer, these sources told international news organizations,
and he had been ill for many months.

"Death of yet another African leader highlights secrecy & lack of transparency when it comes to ailing leaders," CNN's Faith Karimi noted on Twitter, where the hashtag #MelesZenawi was trending globally.

Since I published a blog last week on the
lack of information about the health and whereabouts of Ethiopian Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi, readers have deluged it with comments (over 175 as of
today), reflecting the pent-up interest in the premier's status and deeply
divided views of his leadership.

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If you search for the name of Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi,
on Twitter these days, you'll see a flurry of incongruent postings: Meles is hospitalized
in critical
condition; he's fine and returning to work; he died two weeks ago;
he's on holiday.
Journalists for international news outlets have tried to sort out fact from
rumor, but they've gotten no help from Ethiopian government officials who
offered only vague assurances that the country's longtime leader was ill but recovering.
In Ethiopia, where the government has imposed increasingly repressive measures
on the domestic press corps, news coverage has been minimal and contradictory.

International news outlets, such as Reuters, The Associated Press, and the BBC, reported last week that Meles was hospitalized for an undisclosed condition. Reuters, citing diplomatic sources, said he was being treated in Brussels, although even that scant nugget of information was not officially confirmed.

Ethiopia has always been a country at the cutting edge of Internet
censorship in Africa. In the wake of violence after the 2005 elections, when
other states were only beginning to recognize the potential for online
reporters to bypass traditional pressures, Meles Zenawi's regime was already
blocking major news sites and blog hosts such as blogspot.com. Some sites and Web
addresses have been blocked for their reporting ever since, including exiled
media like Addis Neger Online and Awramba
Times.

On Wednesday, the same day the White
House announced a strategic plan committing the United States to elevating its efforts in "challenging leaders whose actions threaten the
credibility of democratic processes" in sub-Saharan Africa, a senior
member of the U.S. Congress challenged the
erosion of press freedom in a key U.S. strategic partner in the Horn of Africa:
Ethiopia.

Two members of the U.S. Congress, a
Republican and a Democrat, have publicly voiced indignation at Ethiopia's persecution of
journalists
under the leadership of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, with both declaring that
stability and security are enhanced by press freedom.

Will China's quickly expanding media presence in Africa
result in a fresh, alternative, and balanced perspective on the continent--much as Al-Jazeera altered the broadcast landscape with the launch of its English
service in 2006--or will it be essentially an exercise in propaganda?

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Last week in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, while Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi was making a speech about Africa's growth potential
at an African Union forum,
a journalist who his administration has locked away since September
on bogus terrorism charges was presenting his defense before a judge. Eskinder
Nega has been one of the most outspoken critics of Meles' domestic
leadership over the past two decades and has suffered imprisonment,
intimidation, and censorship for it.

It would be hard to find a better symbol of media repression
in Africa than Eskinder Nega. The veteran Ethiopian journalist and dissident
blogger has been detained at least seven times by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's
government over the past two decades, and was put back in
jail on September 14, 2011, after he published a column calling for the
government to respect freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and to end
torture in prisons.